Boundless Manifesto
“Now, nothing is original. OK? So you can steal from anywhere that resonates with inspiration and fuels your imagination. OK? And you can devour old films, new films, music, books, paintings, photographs, poems, dreams, random conversations, architecture, buildings, bridges, you know, trees, cloud formations, bodies of water, you know, even... even light and shadows. Now, I want you to select only those things to steal from that speak directly to your soul. All right? Now, if you do this, your work... and your theft... will be authentic. All right?” - Julian Rosefeldt, Manifesto
I wrote a new manifesto over winter break. It had been brewing in my mind for the last few months and I was finally ready to put it down on paper. I had been keeping a doc with notes, ideas, phrases, and sentences for a few weeks prior, to get a base to work from. And when I felt it was the right time (or maybe I just realized that I needed to get it done to submit with my NYU application) I sat down and wrote out a 1st draft. I sent it to Sayward and asked if we could meet a few times over the next few days to work on it and make it actually good (because my 1st drafts always need lots of work). So Sayward commented on it and we talked on the phone and I made many revisions and reworked sections until I was both out of time to work on it, but also I was happy with what it was.
Manifesto’s are always a big deal for me, because they are me employing all the art theory that I’ve been thinking and talking about, and putting it down on paper as a definitive opinion. This one was especially hard because in it I define art:
I define art as something without boundary, limited only by the imagination of the artist -- as long as they can say that a work is art and discuss it as such, I affirm its existence as an artwork. Any and every thing has the potential to be made into an artwork, all it requires is for an artist (and by this same definition, all of us are artists) to act with intention, to name the work art, and to engage in a dialogue about it. When the thing is given the context of art, it becomes art.
And in defining art I put myself in an ideological box, even if the definition is boundless. For the moment in time that this manifesto represents for me I have cemented myself as believing a certain thing. I do believe it though, I just struggle with the fact that my definition is so all encompassing. While I was writing this piece I would occasionally talk about how things were or weren’t art, and once I finished writing Boundless Manifesto I opened the door to let everything be art, even if it is hard for me to believe.
Boundless Manifesto is my best self, even if I in any given moment may struggle to believe that a thing is art, ideologically, I understand that it all has the potential to be.
I wrote a new manifesto over winter break. It had been brewing in my mind for the last few months and I was finally ready to put it down on paper. I had been keeping a doc with notes, ideas, phrases, and sentences for a few weeks prior, to get a base to work from. And when I felt it was the right time (or maybe I just realized that I needed to get it done to submit with my NYU application) I sat down and wrote out a 1st draft. I sent it to Sayward and asked if we could meet a few times over the next few days to work on it and make it actually good (because my 1st drafts always need lots of work). So Sayward commented on it and we talked on the phone and I made many revisions and reworked sections until I was both out of time to work on it, but also I was happy with what it was.
Manifesto’s are always a big deal for me, because they are me employing all the art theory that I’ve been thinking and talking about, and putting it down on paper as a definitive opinion. This one was especially hard because in it I define art:
I define art as something without boundary, limited only by the imagination of the artist -- as long as they can say that a work is art and discuss it as such, I affirm its existence as an artwork. Any and every thing has the potential to be made into an artwork, all it requires is for an artist (and by this same definition, all of us are artists) to act with intention, to name the work art, and to engage in a dialogue about it. When the thing is given the context of art, it becomes art.
And in defining art I put myself in an ideological box, even if the definition is boundless. For the moment in time that this manifesto represents for me I have cemented myself as believing a certain thing. I do believe it though, I just struggle with the fact that my definition is so all encompassing. While I was writing this piece I would occasionally talk about how things were or weren’t art, and once I finished writing Boundless Manifesto I opened the door to let everything be art, even if it is hard for me to believe.
Boundless Manifesto is my best self, even if I in any given moment may struggle to believe that a thing is art, ideologically, I understand that it all has the potential to be.